"I've been many years with madame," Pauline replied. And then, speaking rather suddenly, "You seem to have a very good memory, Mr. Jock Jacques."
"It is necessary," the man answered, with all the dryness of a Scotsman.
"And yet sometimes," Pauline replied, "it is necessary not to have a good memory."
"Perhaps," the waiter answered. "Certainly sometimes discretion is the better part of recollection," giving her a look of great slyness as he spoke.
Pauline shrugged her shoulders. There was a note of veiled contempt in her voice. "To forget easily is sometimes very convenient, n'est-ce pas?" she said.
"When it is worth more than a good memory," he answered.
"Doubtless you are very well off, Mr. Jock," Pauline continued, and this time the sneer in her voice was hardly veiled.
At this the waiter began brushing the crumbs from the table very vigorously. "I'm only a poor waiter," he said.
"Then surely that must be your own fault? There ought to be many opportunities in a hotel of this sort of making a good use of a convenient memory?"
"Well, yes, you're right there," came from the man, with a rather ill-favoured leer. "But, you see, I am too sentimental for that."